


Intersections of Destiny

by YZYdragon2222



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Naruto
Genre: Airbending, Akatsuki - Freeform, Avatar, Ba Sing Se, Bending, Coup d’etat, Dai Li - Freeform, Earth Kingdom, Earthbending, F/M, Fire Nation, Firebending, M/M, Naruto is the Avatar, Politics, Regicide, Royalty, Sabaku Dynasty, Sandbending, Spirit World, Uchiha Dynasty, War, Waterbending, air temples, more tags may be added, narugaa - Freeform, water tribes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YZYdragon2222/pseuds/YZYdragon2222
Summary: No matter how many friends Naruto surrounds himself with, he knows that he will never truly get rid of the loneliness.  It is a loneliness he knows he has borne for many lifetimes, for the Avatar knows no equal among his peers and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders alone. Even if Naruto fulfills his dream of becoming the “best Avatar ever”, he knows deep down that the loneliness will always remain.  It’s every Avatar’s curse, even for the best Avatar.Therefore, he can’t decide whether it is luck or fate that manages to break this curse of loneliness during his current incarnation.  But Naruto never expected to find a kindred spirit, much less in the form of Ba Sing Se’s serial killer.Meanwhile, Naruto’s dream is put to the test as he realizes that it’s not up to him to maintain peace when it was never really there in the first place.





	1. Chapter 1

PREFACE 

  
  


Welcome to **Intersections of Destiny** .  This is a Naruto AU that takes place in the _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ universe.  Main pairing is NaruGaa.

 

Important information before you start reading! **PLEASE READ:**

 

    1. **Setting:** Takes place in the _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ universe. However, events that occurred in _ATLA_ (i.e. Hundred Year War) do not occur in this AU.  The Air Nomads still exist, but I have omitted gender segregation in the Air Temples (as such, all four Air Temples are mixed gender).  Culture and technology mostly correspond with _ATLA_. There are some changes to the world politics in this AU: the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom have undergone dynasty changes in the past (similar to imperial China, which is the source of inspiration for most of this story).  I have watched very little _Legend of Korra_ and as such this story mostly disregards information provided in _LOK_.
    2. **Bending abilities:** As in _ATLA_ , there are four types of bending abilities: firebending, airbending, waterbending, and earthbending.  The Avatar is the one individual capable of bending all four elements. In this story, lightning generation/redirection is considered a high-level technique exclusively performed by master firebenders, but it is not as rare as it was in _ATLA_.  Bloodbending is also not as rare or as taboo as it was in _ATLA_.  Metalbending exists as a specialized earthbending technique.  Sandbending will also be heavily featured, because Gaara.
    3. **Calendar** : Years are labeled EA (Era of the Avatar).  Naruto and Gaara are born in 4713 EA (in the real world, the year 2018 is 4713 on the Chinese calendar).
    4. **Characters/Relationships:** All characters in this story are from the _Naruto_ universe.  No _ATLA_ characters will appear in this story.  Characters’ place of origin/element will be determined by their personalities/abilities.  As such, do not assume that everyone from the Land of Fire in _Naruto_ will come from the Fire Nation.  The main pairing is NaruGaa; more may be added as the story progresses.
    5. **Physical appearances** : All characters will retain their original physical appearances, EXCEPT for eye color.  In this story, it is considered normal for all firebenders/Fire Nation natives to have gold/amber eyes, all airbenders/Air Nomads to have grey eyes, all waterbenders/Water Tribe natives to have blue eyes, and all earthbenders/Earth Kingdom natives to have green/brown eyes.  To have an eye color that does not correspond with one’s element is considered highly unusual, and usually only occurs in cases of mixed heritage. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, assume that a character has the eye color corresponding to their element.
    6. **Chapters:** First few chapters will be about Naruto’s and Gaara’s childhoods/backstories, and should progress fairly quickly up until the point where they meet.




	2. Chapter 1: Unstable Origins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Origins of Naruto and Gaara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter lays down the groundwork for the story. I intentionally left out some details regarding Gaara’s childhood, because they will be revealed later. 
> 
> Please R&R! Comments are my food and water and without them I will shrivel up and DIE. Maybe. I know there’s not much to talk about right now, but if you have anything to say regarding the merit/potential of a Naruto story in the Avatar universe I’d love to hear it! For so many years I’ve fantasized about Gaara being a sandbending earthbender and it’s time to bring those fantasies into fruition!

Hashirama Senju of the Earth Kingdom died in the year of 4713 EA. Naruto Uzumaki was born in a small Fire Nation island town named Konoha in the same year.   
  
Naruto’s parents were Minato and Kushina, the governor and wife of Konoha at the time. The charismatic young couple were loved by their people.  Since it was a time of peace, few people minded that the beautiful Kushina was blue-eyed. She had emigrated to the Fire Nation in her youth from the Southern Water Tribe. Had she been able to waterbend, her husband’s townspeople may have rejected her, but as things were, Minato, a firebender, remained the only bending parent.   
  
Still, Kushina’s vibrant blue Water Tribe eyes were something that she had passed on to her son. It led Naruto’s parents to believe that Naruto would grow up to be either a waterbender or a nonbender.  Given that the child exhibited no outward behavioral characteristics of being a bender, however, Minato and Kushina were inclined to believe the latter—that Naruto was a nonbender. And they, who loved their son more than anything in the universe, were okay with that.   
  
However, they were wrong.     
  
It happened when their son was three years old, and no one knows what triggered it.  Minato and Kushina only lived long enough to see their Fire Nation son’s blue eyes glow the telltale white they had only ever heard of in legends.  

 

When the three-year-old Avatar woke up after the Avatar State-induced rampage, he had no memory of what had happened and why he was lying on the ground, alone, amidst burning rubble and dust.  He was too young to understand what was that red stuff leaking out of the bodies of the people who were for some reason sleeping in the streets—he was too young to understand that they _weren’t sleeping at all_ , and that he had, in a way, been the cause of their deaths.

 

In time, Konoha was rebuilt, but it never returned to its former glory as a city of peace and prosperity. The population alone had been cut by a staggering quarter from the Avatar’s attack.  Because of Konoha’s small size, general isolation, and distance from the Capital City on the mainland, no official inquiries were made regarding the incident, which was officially recorded as a natural disaster.  Having only been three years since the previous Avatar’s death, no one who hadn’t been witness to the actual event even _considered_ that the unusual incident could be the work of the next Avatar, and the destruction of the better part of Konoha did not do much more than fuel gossip in neighboring towns for several weeks, and was soon forgotten.  

 

Konoha itself, however, did not forget.  Being a small island town mostly ignorant to the accomplishments of past Avatars, the villagers’ bias was heavily swayed against the current one.  In fact, many of them didn’t even truly know what an “Avatar” was; they simply saw the _monster_ who had brought ruin upon their lives: Naruto Uzumaki.

 

And it was among these villagers that the young Avatar would grow up.  None of them were brave enough to attack the boy physically. Sure, some of the younger generation took example from their parents’ hatred of Naruto Uzumaki and as a result bullied him and roughed him up.  But there were no big attacks that could potentially kill the boy. Not that Naruto would have been able to defend against them, anyway. The boy was much different from his Avatar-State self. He had little talent for firebending, much less the other three elements.  So talentless was he that he didn’t even realize he was the Avatar. No one told him otherwise.

 

“Avatar” was a word that the villagers always avoided when verbally abusing him; it was as if they were afraid that his Avatar State would somehow be triggered again should he hear it.

 

But if the villagers’ intentions had been to hurt the boy, they succeeded. Naruto Uzumaki wanted nothing more than companionship and acceptance of others, and he was hurt every time he tried and failed to receive it.  He was too young to remember who his parents were and the love they had showered upon him, once upon a time. When he looked in the mirror, all he saw was the image of an inexplicably blue-eyed Fire Nation nobody, who was for some reason hated by everybody.  He came to expect the jabbing jeers and the sticks and stones, but he still felt a wound in his heart every time.

 

——-

 

In 4713 EA, the Sabaku Dynasty of Ba Sing Se was only ten years old.  It was also the year that Gaara was born within the Earth Palace.

 

His father was Earth King Rasa, the first Sabaku king.  Ten years ago, Rasa, then the leader of the Si Wong Desert Tribes, had led the successful invasion and takeover of Ba Sing Se, and consequently the Earth Kingdom.

 

Gaara’s mother was Karura, one of the King's concubines.

 

But Karura was far from just a concubine.  She was _the_ concubine; the Earth King’s favorite.  Unlike the Earth Queen and the other concubines of the court, she was a beautiful, gentle spirit with seemingly unending compassion.  Far more than pure physical attraction bound Rasa to the woman. They had met when they were teenagers, long before Rasa became Earth King, and had fallen in love.

 

Karura and her younger brother Yashamaru were not Earth Kingdom natives.  They hailed from the Eastern Air Temple, and Karura herself was an airbender.  Of course, no one in Ba Sing Se knew this secret. An airbender within the palace walls?  Directly after a change of dynasty? That would be a scandal.

 

Karura’s first child was born in 4710 EA.  Despite his many other children borne from other women, Temari was Rasa’s true pride and joy.

 

Karura’s second child was born a year later, in 4711 EA.  He was named Kankuro, and he looked just like Rasa.

 

Karura’s third pregnancy was unusual.  Sometimes she was as well as ever, and sometimes she became severely ill and hallucinatory.  There were times that she even became hostile and violent. No healer that the Earth King hired was able to help her.

 

Karura had always had an uncanny ability to communicate with spirits and enter the Spirit World; Rasa knew this.  Her connection with the otherworldly superseded even that of most Air Nomads. But when Rasa observed specks of sand and earth swirling around his _air_ bending lover, he realized that the situation was probably more serious than a regular spiritual disturbance.

 

He began to suspect that his wife had been possessed by a dark entity.  

 

He was only half right.

 

After seven months of pregnancy, a large mass of sand surrounded Karura’s stomach—and tore it open.  The child was sandbending from within the womb and had prematurely forced its own way out of its mother’s body.  In agony, Karura named her child “Gaara” for unknown reasons—then died from shock.

 

No one had ever imagined a child capable of bending when yet unborn; normally, a child’s abilities didn’t manifest until he or she was around five years old.  But infant Gaara seemed to struggle _not_ to bend. The sand and earth around him only calmed in the presence of his uncle, Yashamaru.  

 

And thus, Rasa allowed no one in Gaara’s presence aside from the late Karura’s younger brother.

 

By the time Gaara was three years old, he had come a desperately lonely but sweet young sandbending toddler.  He was also prone to sudden mood swings and violent outbursts that made Yashamaru a regular visitor of the hospital.  Gaara also never slept.

 

It became clear that Karura had never been possessed.  It was _Gaara_ who was possessed all along.

 

At first, Earth King Rasa considered writing to the Air Nomads to ask for an exorcism—surely Karura’s former people would know a thing or two about spiritual possession.  

 

But then, the bitter man changed his mind.

 

The demon child had already taken his true love from him.  Perhaps there was a reason such a child would be born to the Earth Kingdom’s most powerful man, he thought.  Perhaps Gaara was a gift from the spirits; perhaps he was meant to be _used_.

 

On the day that Naruto Uzumaki destroyed half of Konoha in the Fire Nation, Earth King Rasa made the decision to turn Gaara into Ba Sing Se’s weapon.


End file.
